March 1, 2013
In 2006, after a career as an editor and writer for publications such as Outside, GQ and The New York Times Magazine, John Tayman's new book, The Colony, was doing well, and Scribner urged him to start thinking about a second book. Three things gave him pause. First: "I had just finished a long slog on a single book and was not so eager to jump into something of that size immediately."
Secondly: "I could see and recognize significant changes afoot as the industry moved from analog to digital."
February 18, 2013
Game designer Mike Selinker had a dream back in 1995—to bring his puzzle solving fantasy adventure, a book called The Maze of Games, to market.
No one he knew thought he could sell it, so Selinker put his manuscript in the proverbial drawer for eighteen years. Then he decided to try Kickstarter.
Four and half hours after his campaign launched, he met his campaign goal of $16,000, and to date has attracted 1,600 backers and raised more than $100,000.
February 18, 2013
Two years ago, faberNovel published a study called “Amazon.com: The Hidden Empire.” Detailing the strategies by which the company had gone from a scrappy startup to a world-dominating e-commerce site in the course of 17 years, the study generated a lot of discussion on the web.
We called it “The Hidden Empire” because at the time, Amazon was somewhat of a secret giant. Of course everyone bought their books on Amazon, but in 2011, the mainstream opinion was that Apple, Google and Facebook were the giants of the times.
February 12, 2013
Impelsys, a global leader in providing electronic content delivery solutions, today announced the release of iPublishCentral 4.1, the latest version of its award-winning digital publishing software for publishers. iPublishCentral is a comprehensive platform that allows publishers to warehouse, deliver, distribute, market and sell their eBooks without making significant capital or engineering resource investments on their own. This means that publishers are able to quickly monetize their digital assets by selling eBooks to institutions, retail partners and directly to consumers.
February 12, 2013
Lori Hettler is a passionate reader, tearing through about 80 books a year. But as a resident of a Pennsylvania town and with a preference for fiction from small publishers, she can have trouble finding new books to feed her habit.
She tried to start a book club, but there weren’t enough takers. For years she made a weekly trip to browse a bookstore 40 minutes away in a Scranton suburb.
But then she found a solution to her problem: Goodreads.com, a social media site for finding and sharing titles that has 15 million members…
February 8, 2013
There is no such thing as a dog-eared e-book — each copy is forever perfect. But a new Amazon patent could go a long way toward making the digital media in our lives a lot more like the physical version.
Last week, Amazon patented a way to sell “used” e-books, music, videos, apps and other “digital objects.” The marketplace described in the patent would let such exchanges take place by cutting off the seller’s access to a piece of digital content once the buyer paid.
February 5, 2013
Bookish (www.bookish.com) a one-stop, comprehensive online destination designed to connect readers with books and authors, launches today, providing visitors with exclusive content and insider access to A-list writers. Notable launch stories include: A joint interview with legendary crime fiction writer Michael Connelly and prize-winning suspense author Michael Koryta, revealing that Connelly had begun a book centering on a school shooting prior to the tragedy in Sandy Hook. The article also features juicy tidbits about both Connelly and Koryta’s upcoming books: www.bookish.com/connelly
February 4, 2013
Lerner Digital, a division of Lerner Publishing Group, today announced enhancements to its Lerner Interactive Books product line, as well as updates to the Lerner Digital eReader App for the iPad. Effective immediately, all Lerner Interactive Books now include a third audio speed to model pronunciation and fluency while helping beginning readers, struggling readers, and English Language Learners build reading skills and confidence. All school customers that have previously purchased Lerner Interactive Books from the Company and its distributors will automatically receive the new enhanced versions at no charge.
February 1, 2013
If we start to think of “books as data,” then the traditional publisher’s role starts to sound a lot like the role of providing an API: A publisher’s job is to manage how and when and under what circumstances people (readers) or other services (book stores, libraries, other?) access books (data).
We know what this job looks like in the old world of bound paper and bricks and mortar stores, and we’re pretty sure we understand it in a world of EPUB and Kindle.
But as we move into a primarily digital world…
January 30, 2013
Last week, following a soft-launch the week prior, Random House marched out BookScout, a Facebook app designed to link readers with books they'll like but might not have discovered on their own.
We asked Amanda Close, Senior Vice President, Digital Marketplace Development at Random House, to take us through the steps of getting an app like BookScout into the world, and how it plans to hone it going forward.
